The premise of this one is simple: I buy a gi, I look at it, I try it on….then I put it through the paces in the heat of glorious unarmed gladiatorial combat to see just how good (or shite. I ain’t gonna lie and blow sunshine up people’s arses) the product is.

For the inaugural entry into this new section is a company that has not be around very long, but enough to make an impact on the jiu jitsu community in the United States.

Honor Gis is an American gi manufacturer and distributor. Based out of Austin, Texas the company’s main man, BJJ Professor Mikal Abdullah, founded the company to provide great quality products at a great discount price. The company offers individual pricing for the every day jiu jiteiro, and wholesale pricing if you want your entire dojo walking around swaggerific A. F.

THE PRICEAt the time of this article’s publication, the price of one Honor Gi is $65.00USD plus Shipping. This may change as it was a Black Friday sale. I kinda got the short end of the stick because I got charged for the gi (obvs) and the shipping (can’t walk there to get it) but also got hit for the conversion and the COD charges. Kinda lame, but shit happens, right?

THE APPEARANCEI gotta say. When I first pulled this gi out of the package, I was impressed. The logo is put cleanly on both shoulders and the bottom of the pants. I’m used to having a little less clean of a gi with fancy patches and crap all over it….but I can fix that. No problem haha

As a proud Canadian….I can only say there was….one teensy tiny lil problem with the gi….

My high school English teacher is shitting her pants right now…

And then….as if by some magical Canadian power, it came to me.

Ahhhhhhh….that right there is much better, eh? Noo. Doot. Aboot It!

WEARABILITY
I gotta tell you. This thing feels awesome. The jacket is a little big; the lapel is a little longer than normal and falls beneath by waist line. Which, when one of your favourite moves is choking a mother fucker out with your lapel, suits me just fine! The pants…..oh the pants……I have never had a pair of gi pants fit me so well. They are flexible as all hell. I can’t do the splits anymore. But if I could. I could do them in these friggin’ pants. They’re light, the drawstrings are of great quality and they stay on my waist just right. I can’t say enough about the pants.

THE ROLL
And this here, folks….is the make it or break it point. If your gi looks great but performs like a wet garbage bag….ya ain’t got a thing.

This thing went through a good workout. including a lot of pulling, sliding (shrimping and triangle drills from one end of the dojo to the other). Normally, my pants would start to slide down a little bit….or at least bunch up a bit. Nope. Honor Gi kept my ass in place and stayed exactly where it was supposed to.

It went through a number of rolls with a number of different belt levels. It was breathable, cool, not a single ounce of stiffness…this gi felt like I was rolling in gym clothes. I had complete mobility at all times. Very smooth, appears to be quite durable, double stitching throughout….it took a beating tonight, and it kept on going!

What did I tell ya? Swaggerific AF, son!

FINAL COMMENTS
I gotta say. Honor Gis has made a rather solid product here. It looks good, it feels better, it performs admirably, I really like it. Would I buy another one? 110%. Would I recommend it to someone else? I think this review speaks for itself. Most definitely. This here is a great product. Its at a great price. It’s a gi that was put together and shipped out with the everyday jiu jiteiro in mind. BJJ on a budget, ya might as well have a quality gi at the same time. Job well done, Honor Gis. I am impressed.

** NOTE ** If you do not care about me, my journey, my goals, being inspired (I hope) or being motivated to keep going, stop right here. My next question would be why are you reading this to begin with if one of those conditions weren’t true?

I CAN. I WILL. I MUST.

I have been in a slump mentally since my last trip to the dojo. That night was an embarrassment. Not because I got beat in a roll, but because of my actions. Because of my ego and attitude. Because it feels like I did damage to a few friendships. When I posted a link recently to my last blog post, I got a reply back, saying how disappointed that person was with me and my actions. Nothing that has happened to me in my studies of the martial arts thus far has pierced me like a dagger such as hearing a person whom I put 110% of my respect, trust and loyalty in, tell me that. It stung. A lot. It still does. And I deserved every second of it.

However.

I will not let a moment of weakness…a moment of stupidity…ruin everything I have worked for. I had this gut feeling that I would not be welcomed at that class anymore. To be perfectly honest, I have been working every day since that class so as of the writing of this post, I may not be welcomed there. I hope that isn’t the case, but I guess this week there will be only one way to find out.

I did get another comment from a friend of mine who read the last post that I have contemplated and meditated on. My friend Sarah suggested that I think back to the reasons why I started this journey to begin with. Why I started to train in the martial arts again after so many years of being apart. It wasn’t to get belts…or stripes….or “Gucci gis” as she puts it. I started to train in martial arts, both Karate and Jiu Jitsu, because I had lost my way. Because I was suffering from mental and emotional stress that was causing me depression and a feeling of meaninglessness.

I started training to become better. To find myself and make that person a better person. I didn’t start training to become a black belt. I didn’t start training to become world champion. Only the champion of my life.

Being from a paramilitary background, I suppose somewhere along the lines I took the belt system and turned it into a hierarchy. I actually put a rank association to stripes…that a two striper was somehow supposed to be more skilled than a no striper. I mean, that two striper has typically put a year or so into their studies…clearly they should have the skills to win. I was wrong. I can see where I was wrong. And now I am re-programming myself to correct that.

Somehow, I started training to find myself and found the wrong version of myself. I found someone who wanted to be promoted and get up in belt grade…to somehow feel better about myself and to make it seem like I had proven myself. I started to find myself and lost myself all over again. Maybe this is a midlife crisis as far as martial arts goes.

My meditations and soul searching also included listening to some great motivational videos on the ol’ YouTube. One that stuck out the most (and yes I listened to all twenty-four minutes) was a video called “I CAN. I WILL. I MUST.” It starts off with a motivational speech by Eric Thomas where this line becomes very prevalent. Those words repeated over and over in my mind. I can. I will. I must. What do these words symbolise to me? It symbolises overcoming all obstacles to meet your goal. Not letting anything stand in your way. Not allowing excuses to run you off your course. Searching deep within yourself to find out the real reason you start doing something.

I can. I will. I must. Lose body fat and increase cardiovascular strength. Physical fitness will not only help my martial arts skills and my confidence, it will also help me to progress in my career as I have fitness tests to pass before I can move on to bigger and better things. More importantly, there is a saying that says when you work in law enforcement, you give up the right to be out of shape. Which is true. Your life, your partner’s life, the lives of people in your community, may one day depend on your physical training. I cannot. Will not. Must not. Let them down.

I can. I will. I must. Remember why I started training. It didn’t begin in trying to get a belt. To hell with belts. They are pieces of cloth and not much more. What good is a three stripe white belt if people consistently take my back and put me in highly volatile, dangerous defensive positions? I can…I will…I must….become a better jiu jiteiro. Not a better white belt, not a guy who can compete, not a guy who can qualify for a blue belt…but a better jiu jiteiro. Because the belt around your waist is absolutely fucking useless if you don’t have a single clue in what you’re doing. Don’t work on getting another stripe or a blue belt. Work on not getting yourself in terrible positions. Work on not having to dig yourself out of holes because someone just took your neck and is about to run away with it.

I can. I will. I must. Return to a humble beginning. Completely shed myself of the idea of ranks and qualifications. A belt is meaningless…all that matters is the skill you have behind it. You can be an orange belt in Karate and beat a higher belt in sparring. Perform a kata better than a higher belt. Your skill and will to win and learn should vastly outweigh what you think of your belt. There are no ranks. Only skills. I must return to my roots…the reason I started training. I was broken, and searching out a way to become whole again. That is the goal….not to be a black belt or a competitor…but to be better today than I was yesterday, and to be better tomorrow than I am today.

I can. I will. I must. Change my ways…change my way of thinking. Open my mind to be more accepting of defeat and the lessons it can teach me. Accept that belts and stripes are a personal reflection of my journey and cannot, by any means, be compared to that of any other person. Cait and I were looking into indoor rock climbing. I have done it a handful of times before and would love to go back. There are competitions and climbing levels, so to speak. Do I want to try it again to win rock climbing trophies and get to the highest level of climber? No. Its a great work out and its fun…something I have forgotten about martial arts.

I can. I will. I must. Become rankless. Become gradeless. Stripeless. Mindful only of my own skills, strengthening my strengths and improving upon my weaknesses.

I can. I will. I must. Become karateka again. Become jiu jiteiro again. A student of martial arts and of self discovery, and not a slave to a self-imposed hierarchy.

I can. I will. I must. Put the effort into my cardio training and, more so importantly, my diet. No more excuses. I have to drop the weight.

I can. I will. I must.

The time for bullshitting is over.

A whole new me is coming, Team ACMA. I hope you’re ready for it.

As I embark on this journey to correct my course, I hope I’m ready for it too.

Last night was a night I likely should have listened to my own advice…the same advice that has been given by countless jiu jiteiro in the past.

We have a guy who started training around the same time I did. He’s a part of my crew in Karate as well. He went to the last competition that our academy participated in, got some solid experience and then had to take some time away from training for personal reasons. In that time, I was striped up and he missed it. Oh well, shit happens. All that he is missing is time on the mats, just like anyone else.

So we decided last night to have a light roll before class last night. I don’t know where it turned into an all out aggression fest, but it did. He caught me in a crossface choke. And a bad one. It reminded me of how I used to do crossface chokes before realising that there were much better, slightly fairer options in a light roll. (Nothing against him. As far as I know its a legit move, but I’ve heard its frowned upon for reasons like I was doing it; big guy, lots of weight into the knife edge of an arm, into your throat.) No surprise, it hurt. A lot. He put it on tight and was tightening it up every second. I almost passed out and was only kept conscious by rage…a rage I hadn’t felt in a long time. A rage fuelled not only by pain, but what I felt at the time was embarrassment.

Well, it was on. I used that rage to somehow break free of the choke. To be honest, it’s likely that he figured I wasn’t going to tap from it so he went to try something else. He had me in a strong closed guard, and I heard other guys saying “Posture up. Break the guard.” But that didn’t matter. I wanted to flatten him. Put as much weight and pressure on him as I could. I stopped thinking and went straight into attack mode.

We switched positions a few times; I got him into a kesa gatame, he transitioned into a full mount, I moved it into a side control, he moved it into a closed guard…somehow I went for a choke where you wrap your opponent’s gi around his neck (not exactly a baseball choke with the lapel…but close enough) and I didn’t exactly complete it. He did a great job of defending it for the most part. I only got it about 70% around and it wasn’t enough to get the submission. All I remember though, is “I want to sink this in and give you the same amount of pain you gave me.”

To sum it up, I fought out of anger and ego. I let my emotions get the best of me. At that moment, I looked at our belts, him with his two stripes and me with my three and I wasn’t thinking Oh I’m better than him because I have an extra piece of tape. I was thinking that I should be better than the performance I’m putting on and I’m not. And that, coupled with the pain of that choke, is what infuriated me. I have been training for almost a year and a half. I have three stripes. My professors put their faith in me and believe that I am good enough to wear that rank, and I am not. I can’t even explain everything that was going through my mind. I saw red, and only red. Maybe if I can just get the submission I can prove that I have earned this stripe and that my time on the mat has been worth it.

Looking back at that moment, I ask myself, with a now much clearer mind….

What would have you done….said…..felt….if you had actually hurt him?

I can’t answer that question. Likely I would feel as I feel now….like a giant piece of shit.

I have thought about the events of last night, and meditated about them, and have done a little soul searching. The quote in the title of this post, “Check your ego at the door” has various meanings to everyone, but for me it has taught me some valuable lessons:

Belt colour is irrelevant. Its just a dye on a white belt. Stripes are irrelevant. It is a piece of fucking hockey tape that simply shows that you started this long ago, and have improved since then. It is no indication whatsoever of someone’s true skill and abilities.

Black belts have been tapped by white belts. It’s the nature of the beast, the flow of the roll. People are better than you. It happens. Suck it up and deal. You don’t always win.

Jiu Jitsu, just like Karate and every other traditional martial art, is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes dedication and hard work and at the end of the day, I must never strive to be the best. There will always be someone better than you. All I can truly do is strive to be the best that I can personally be and if that isn’t the best in the world? If a two stripe, one stripe, no stripe beats me? Oh well. They may be naturally better than me. All that means is that I must work harder, smarter, train longer…do whatever it takes so that I may not beat that person, but so that I may be proud of my attempt. Maybe that is part of my problem…that victory seams to be the measure of success.

Fuck your pride. Family comes before all. I screwed up last night and not only did I not control my ego and my emotions, I let my brother leave without apologising to him. I let my pride dictate my actions and I should not have done that.

Ryan, I don’t know if you read this thing…I’m sure millions of people don’t lol but if you do, I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I was an asshole last night, I didn’t think clearly, I should have known that you wouldn’t intentionally try to hurt me…you’ve taught me some valuable lessons and I promise that I shall never roll like that again.

Just to wrap up, a few inspirational quotes that I find are relevant to this discussion:

“The separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.”
– Will Smith

“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.”
– Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Geeze…I try to post new content about what happened in the last 6 months, and then new stuff happens haha

I have been off work for the entire month of November. I booked off duty on November 5th in the morning, and woke up to TRAINING CAMP 2017. What does this mean? Well, a few things. I didn’t take any vacation for the past two years (We can carry over a year’s worth, so I had two years plus lieu time plus float days that I just didn’t use all year lol) so I had to burn off some of the time or I would lose it. Hmmm….don’t come back to work until December. Sign me up!

It also means that I can spend (and have spent) the vast majority of my time in the gym and in the dojo. I set some lofty goals for this training camp. First was to break under 240lbs (yeah….don’t think that one is gonna happen lol), the second was to earn a stripe on my blue black belt (which apparently we’re being tested for tomorrow night, but this next point is too exciting to wait for) and third was to put in as many mat hours as possible and earn a stripe on my BJJ white belt.

Lofty but not impossible.

Tonight, after rolling and in spite of an injured shoulder, I was advanced to third stripe on my white belt.

See? So pretty! Both the stripe and the beard which is coming along nicely if I do say so myself lol

What does this mean? Well, I’m now one whole stripe away from being considered for promotion to Blue belt.

What does that mean? Someone once explained the numbers to me.

Of the 7.6 Billion people on the planet Earth, approximately 7 million of them have ever tried Jiu Jitsu

Of those 7 million people, approximately 10% or 700,000 people stick with the art long enough to be promoted to Blue belt.

Ok. So. *ahem* here we are again.
I told you before that I wouldn’t neglect this blog. And I have.
I told you that I wouldn’t change things drastically. And I have.
If this blog was a romantic relationship, I would be a shitty boyfriend.
And this post would be the bouquet of flowers, the “I’m sorry” cake and the promise to do better.

Thankfully, for yours truly, that is exactly what this post gets to be. Allow me to explain:

A number of months ago (close to the beginning of this blog) I came up with the grand idea of making the background colour the colour of my belt. White belt? Worked great! Yellow belt? Well….sure! Still good! Orange belt? Hmmmmm….that font is a little…..green belt? Fer. Get. It. Can’t read it, cap’n. So I went back and tried to edit all of my blogs manually to have white text to show up on the darker backgrounds. Yeah. That made writing them a gigantic pain in my ass. Writing them on my mobile phone? HA! I won’t say impossible, but not easy enough for me to want to constantly do it.

So as of today? I have made the backgrounds plain old black and white. Now, with all due respect to Funakoshi-sama, the white background plus the white header image makes this page look boring as Hell. I am currently aware of that and am in the process of hijacking asking my lovely, amazing, beautiful, sexy, creative, entrepreneur girlfriend if I can use her Photoshop baring laptop to make something fancy.

I did get promoted to Go-Kyu in Karate. For our dojo, that is Blue/Black. ‘Tis fancy.

The night I was promoted to Go-Kyu.

I also have become a lot more active on Instagram. It kinda took the place of the blog for a while, but now I’m working to integrating the two to provide my fans (HA!) with both long, drawn out text based correspondence such as this, and flashy pictures such as Instagram.

That’s all for now. I do have 6 months to catch up on…but I’ll get to that over the next week or so. There’s some great stuff to share! Neat pictures, random thoughts, philosophical crap….maybe even a picture of me meeting another BJJ legend….I dunno….I guess you’ll just have to….

Since deciding to enter competition, I have been attending BJJ classes almost religiously. I figure, if I’m not going to win, I’m at least going to learn enough to give folks a run for their money! I’ve been going to our Fundamentals class as well as our regular rolling class a lot more often than before (next to never). I have learned a great deal in the last little while, my defence game has gotten much better and I’m actually attempting attacks now!

Tonight, we had some great drills, which I was nailing if I do say so myself (and I do lol) and managed to survive against pretty much every opponent I rolled with. I even….dare I say…….(dare! dare!) choked out a blue belt. He may have let me, I’m not gonna lie lol but it felt awesome to be able to launch an attack and it be successful.

Speaking of successful. A whole bunch of us were called up tonight to receive stripes on our belts. Including…..well…..

This guy!

Half way to blue belt! Making it up there!

Big shout out to everyone who got striped up tonight, especially Ryan who finally got his first stripe! You should’ve got it a long time ago, bro. So proud of you!

Speaking with a good buddy and fellow martial artist Ryan, he mentioned that we should try out a tournament for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Not a bad idea, right? Right? I wanted to train extra hard, get a couple more stripes on my white belt, drop like, 40 more pounds and THEN go to competition. Like, next year at the earliest. But you know what?

Fuck it.
Let’s do it now.

As such….Ryan and I (and a bunch of other folks from ACMA) are planning on hitting up the Grappling Industries Toronto Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Tournament!

Damn! Even their posters like friggin’ high intensity!!

Looks like I will likely be competing in the Men’s Masters Ultra Super Heavyweight Class. Unless I can drop the 40lbs between now and then.

I don’t expect to win. Hell, I don’t even expect to do well. I do expect to go in there, give it my best shot, learn a few things and get some great experience out of it. It’s also motivating me to train a lot hard in my BJJ and my athletic conditioning ahead of time for the big day. A LOT more mat time is about to come my way.

So the other night, I came back from a cadet training weekend and I was exhausted. Supervising a couple hundred kids and their officers can get tiring! Either way, I got back into the hometown, met up with the wifey for some dinner, because apparently humans need to eat or something….sounds like devil magic to me…lol anywho, got home around 10:30ish, got into bed and was out before 11. Highly unusual for me, but when the body says sleep, you listen.

I wake up around 7 or 8 (and yelled to the cabbie “Yo homes! Smell ya later!”) and started getting ready to take Cait to the airport. Then I get a message from my dear Professor, Fariba.

“Good morning darling !!! I’m sorry I didn’t let you know this earlier !! The seminar on Thursday got cancelled because of flight
Cancellations in NY !! He didn’t make it here till after mid night !
Anyways its rescheduled for today at 2:30 pm !!
If you can come we would love to see you !’
See
If you can convince your buddy Ryan to come !!
Michael and Brian and Taylor will be there too !’ I would love to see my fundamental student brothers and sisters participating and learning from this legend !!”

I took a look at my day’s calendar. It’s 8:00. Loaf around the apartment til like, 11:00. Hit the gym, clear by 1:00. Pick up wifey at 1:30. Drop off at airport around 2. Which leaves….definite time to attend! Quickly grabbed a bite and downed a coffee, hurried over to the dojo and there he was.

Professor Carlos Machado.

It’s not every day that the average BJJ student gets to meet the guy whose name is on their gi. It was a fabulous seminar. Professor Machado is not only friendly and hilarious, but a very talented BJJ teacher and very wise master. I was truly honoured to be in his presence and learn a thing or two from him.

Me on the left (obviously…….) and Professor Carlos Machado.

I can’t wait til Tuesday! All you fundamental brothers and sisters who didn’t bother to come….you gon’ get smashed.

I wish I could sum up things like my Sensei, Kyoshi Vito, but I can’t. And thus, I will post something here and copy his words. If you can help this poor girl in any way, please I urge you. Go to Tim Horton’s this week instead of Starbucks and help give a kid a chance at a regular childhood!!

Check out the GoFundMe page, located at https://www.gofundme.com/nupur-medical-fund

Nupur Mate is a beautiful and happy 11 year old girl. Like any other girl her age, Nupur enjoys socializing with friends, loves taking karate and swimming lessons and spending time with her parents. About 3 weeks ago, life for Nupur and her parents changed drastically.

It started out as a cough, sore throat and fever which became severe enough to rush Nupur to a hospital. She returned home that night only to be rushed back to the hospital the next day because she had no feeling in her arms and legs. In emergency, she flat lined (her heart stopped). Nupur had many doctors and nurses working on her, performing CPR in front of her devastated parents. Doctors were finally able to revive her and the hospital immediately transferred Nupur to Sick Kids.

The diagnosis from Sick Kids was a mutated form of Strep A bacteria that had attacked Nupur’s body. Nupur was put on life support, and had kidney failure (which now requires regular dialysis). Her prognosis was dim. The doctors told her parents that she may not live through the night. Nupur remained on life support for another 8 days.

Nupur’s blood pressure was dangerously low and the bacteria was attacking her limbs. Her parents were told to prepare for the worst. With a miracle, she may survive but doctors felt they may need to amputate portions of her limbs in order to stop the bacteria from causing any further damage.

Unfortunately, on Friday, March 10, 2017, a portion of Nupur’s left arm and right leg had to be amputated. Nupur is still at Sick Kids but her condition has stabilized. She will be at Sick Kids for at least 6 months and will require prosthetics and extensive rehabilitation. She has a very long and hard road ahead of her.

Nupur trains at All Canadian Martial Arts (ACMA) and was working on her advanced brown belt before her life changed dramatically. At ACMA, every single member is considered family. Currently, the only family Nupur and her parents have in Canada are the instructors and students of ACMA. ACMA has raised some funds in order for Nupur’s mother to leave her place of work so that she can be with her only child.

However, the funds raised are not sufficient to provide for the extensive care related expenses the family will incur. The coverage by the province is limited for prosthetics , and their home will need renovations (bathroom modifications, and railing installations) to accommodate a child with new prosthetics.

Nupur is one tough little girl and she is still fighting the biggest fight of her life. Nupur has chosen to stay positive saying that she is happy to be alive and to have a second chance at life. She understands that she has a long and challenging road ahead of her but is determined to return to normal life, including school, karate, and swimming.

The family needs your support and help to provide some relief from the financial burden so that they can focus on Nupur’s recovery. If you would like to make a contribution to help the Mate family in their time of need, they would be extremely grateful. No amount is too small to make a difference.

Thank you, on behalf Sunita, Nikhil and Nupur Mate!

Nupur, we love you!

Help spread the word!

2nd Kyu Shotokan Karateka Nupur Mate

I believe in the power of the internet to accomplish something positive. Come on, folks! If you can’t give anything monetarily, at least keep this bright, shining face in your thoughts and prayers.

Well folks, as I’m sure you can tell by the layout of the blog, something has changed. Something is….different.

The background? It is blue. One may have noticed that before, it was green. And before that? Orange. Yes. I change the background whenever my belt colour changes. Which means….I am now a blue belt.

March 9th, 2017 myself and my compadres went into grading. We attended that night as the Lean Mean Green Machine, and today? We are the Blue Man Group. Myself, Ryan, Amir and Chris all received our promotions to 6th Kyu in the art of Shotokan Karate. I am proud of each and every one of you, and very proud of everyone who attended their grading and received their new belts. Well done to you all!

And now….we move from the top of the beginner level to the bottom of the intermediate group. Let’s see how far the rabbit hole goes this year!

6th Kyu (Blue Belt) Doug.

Dang that belt looks a little small….guess its time to step up the cardio…. 😉

I know Joan was looking down on me that night. Thank you for your strength and courage, grandma. Hopefully I don’t let you down.